Opening details

This year the Earth faced the strongest geomagnetic disturbances in a very long time. They caused auroras as far as the equator, which is extremely unusual for our planet. They were also observed in Ukraine as a red, pink or green glow in the sky. But these cases are in no way comparable to what happened almost three thousand years ago, Channel 24 reported, citing the University of Arizona.

Thanks to a fleet of satellites that constantly monitor space weather, we learn about modern explosions, coronal mass ejections and magnetic storms on the Sun. What about events that occurred before the creation of modern technologies? If an unprecedented solar storm occurred thousands of years ago, how would we know about it?

Luckily for us they are old Trees act like time capsules, literally recording Earth’s history within their trunks. A research team from the University of Arizona, led by Timothy Jull, is revealing these tree secrets by carefully analyzing tree rings. The main goal is to find evidence of massive solar disturbances. Miyake events.

What is the Miyake Event?

This is a type of extreme solar activity first discovered by Japanese physicist Fusa Miyake in 2012. These phenomena are characterized by a significantly higher intensity of solar plasma emissions and radiation. They are so rare that only 6 have been discovered in the last 14,500 years.

The final Miyake Incident occurred around 775 AD. But now scientists have confirmed another event that took place around 660 BC.

If it were to happen today, it would have disastrous consequences for communications technologies.
– scientists write in their reports.

If powerful solar flares are directed at Earth, they can hit our electronic devices, create excessive current, and literally burn everything from the inside out. The magnetic field protects us from this, but the strongest events still damage the planet’s power grids and burn out satellites in orbit. For example, this has happened before with the newly launched Starlink group and also recently with three Australian satellites.

Fusa Miyake also works in the same group of scientists. He discovered a characteristic feature of these extreme events: a sharp increase in radioactive isotopes of carbon, especially carbon-14, in the growth rings of trees.

Carbon-14 is a naturally occurring form of radioactive carbon that forms in the atmosphere when cosmic radiation interacts with nitrogen. It eventually reacts with oxygen to form carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide then enters the trees through photosynthesis, is absorbed and becomes part of the wood as it grows.

A larch trunk recovered from ancient sediments by scientists / Photo: University of Arizona

To reach the described results, scientists examined individual tree rings from ancient wood samples taken from rivers and swamps, where they are best preserved. Cellulose, the main component of wood, is then burned to determine its radiocarbon content.

Once a radiocarbon peak is detected, researchers compare the tree ring data with peaks of other isotopes, such as beryllium-10, locked in ice cores pulled from glaciers and ice sheets; This is another remarkable natural time capsule. Like carbon-14, beryllium-10 is formed in the atmosphere by bombardment of solar particles. Precipitation, such as rain or snow, traps the isotope and locks it in the ice sheet.

If ice cores taken from both the North and South Poles show an increase in the beryllium-10 isotope in a given year that coincides with an increase in radiocarbon in tree rings, we know there is a solar storm.
– says the article.

Data from tree rings and ice allowed us to determine the date of Miyake, an extreme solar storm whose timing had long eluded researchers: It occurred between 664 and 663 BC.